A Braid of Ruddy Twine
by I'm not telling
Summary: Renamed from The Art of Ties. As Naruto looks through the Forbidden Scroll, he comes across a justu promising to summon a person to help him as a friend and companion. But who is this girl? And how is she supposed to help him? Genfic. Epic.


**A/N:**This is an old story I'm in the middle of completely revamping with a rewrite, and I decided to try and post it on lj first so I could get some fresh opinions on it. Its also much easier to update it as a journal entry. And to go through spell-checking it, for that matter...

And now it's here on FFnet. Huzzah to those of you who keep checking on everything - I know you're out there. I've heard I won't loose reviews for the chapters after this once I take them down too, so joy to that peice of knowlege as well.

For those wondering when I'm going to get to the damned new stuff already, my current goal is to write 500 words a day. I plan for all the current events you know about in the story to take twice the word count of the old version. I'm also planning for Chapter One to get all the stuff from the first manga chapter done and over with. You'll get the literal 'new stuff' starting with Chapter Numero Uno before the end of January (hopefully before my b-day), and the second may come out some time in the first half of Febuary. We'll see, I guess.

Summary: As Naruto looks through the Forbidden Scroll, he comes across a justu promising to summon a person to help him as a friend and companion. But who is this girl? And how is she supposed to help him?

Tags/Warnings: Genfic. Language. Violence. Epic. Some parts may get a bit darker later on, but that will probably only result in some slightly more graphic descriptions during fight scenes or the occasional angsty flashback and whatnot.

Pairings: I highly doubt there will ever be a pairing, but if there is one it won't be Naruto/SummonedOC, that's for sure. Anything romantic taking place between anyone will probably not happen. Period.

This is the prologue, and so far I'm damn proud of the results. But then again, I'm bias right now, so concrit is needed, appreciated, and loved like a fist child.

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-oOo-

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Naruto stared down at the scroll in his lap, trying to read through the technique needed to pass the test. His face had long before scrunched up in a frustrated scowl, and had only been getting worse over the past few minutes. 

The sky had begun darkening hours ago - starting before he had even taken the scroll - and he'd already had to change the batteries in his miniature flashlight twice. His face darkened even more when he realized the damned things light was slowly dimming again.

He growled as the flashlight went out for a second, and gave it a violent shake or two for the dimming light to come back. _I don't have some sort of limitless supply of batteries on me damn it! Stop dying you stupid little piece of junk!_ He studied the spot of light on the scroll for a moment longer, and once he seemed satisfied with its cooperation at the moment, then continued to struggle through the description of kage bunshin once again.

The chances of him passing this secret test weren't looking good though. This had been the third time he had read through the technique, and it was only becoming harder to understand the further he read each time.

He did his best to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach, and read faster.

"Fuck!"

...Until his flashlight went out.

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•**Prologue** •  
Clutch the Spool

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-oOo-

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"RAAARRRGH!!!" He threw the tiny flashlight away from him, and it clinked against the ground some distance away in the dark. Naruto sat on the ground with his insides just boiling at all this, this - _this is complete bull, damnit!_

It took him a few seconds for him to freeze, realizing he just got rid of his only light source - and then he was back to raging again. "God _damnit!_" Naruto growled, and without further ado, stood up and let the huge scroll tumble off his lap and roll open on the ground as he walked in the direction he threw his flashlight.

It was very easy for him to slip into doubt as he dropped to his knees, now that he wasn't focused on the scroll, and his thoughts where heading downward while he blindly pawed at the ground in his search. _How am I supposed to graduate if I can't even understand the technique I need to learn?_ Naruto began thinking. _I can't fail again! This is the last chance I have to graduate in Iruka-sensei's class, and then..._ Naruto flinched when thinking of the alternative._Then I'll be stuck with a different teacher._

There had been too many people teaching at the Academy to count who would do everything in their power to pretend he didn't really exist. The only time they would acknowledge his presence was during the beginning of class - at roll call. Even on the very first day at the Academy, when everyone was found present and then instructed to introduce themselves, he was left standing when the teacher immediately called the person after him, completely skipping his name. The man didn't even looking up as he was forced to sit back down without saying anything.

Naruto was quick to catch the pattern all his teachers took. If the teacher went to hand pick a written test from the students, his was left and ungraded. When they where taught body conditioning and taijutsu, he was left with whatever naive mistake he'd made when doing it on his own. If he raised his hand to answer a question in class, they would call on someone else -if no one else knew, the teacher would just tell them outright. When Naruto didn't understand the lesson, he was glanced over without the teacher even diverging from the lecture. His hand would sometimes stay up for the entire class, while anyone who noticed smiled and snickered, before poking at their friends so they could laugh and smile with them. Naruto learned not to raise his hand in class anymore.

No matter how hard Iruka could be on him at times, or how much the man blew his top when he did something to set his sensei off, he was a fair teacher. His tests where graded even if they where completely blank, and the testee would later be reprimanded by being smacked in the head after beginning his incessant whining and bad-mouthing. Iruka would adjust his fighting stance seemingly whenever he saw Naruto do it, and make him run extra laps if he played pranks on people when outside. His teacher would sometimes kamikaze him with questions during lectures, and would compliment him on the off chance he knew the answer. There was more than one time that Naruto distinctly thought that his sensei was talking everyone's ear off because at least one person didn't understand what was being said - even though said person never raised his hand. Hell, if he was honest with himself, Iruka sometimes went out of his way to teach him, making him stay after class to try and show him something, or even tracking him down and screaming his ear off when he skipped class before tying him to his desk. Not that Naruto really paid too much attention when he_did_ help him, but sometimes stuff got through anyways.

And now he was going to fail again. Naruto didn't hesitate to think that when that happened, he could kiss his chance at ever becoming a genin goodbye forever.

He didn't even begin to question how lucky he was for the second chance to graduate with his class. As soon as Mizuki-sensei had told him about it, his teacher had a student who constantly slept in class looking at him with rapt attention. Naruto wasn't stupid enough to look such a gift horse in the mouth, and was willing to listen to every word his assistant teacher said like it was all coming from that wellspring of delicious ramen behind Ichiraku's Ramen Bar (and he didn't care what anyone else had to say on the matter; _there was a replenishing hot spring of magical ramen in the village!_).

Naruto sighed as he began to carefully crawl along the ground, waiting for his hand to brush against the object as it moved on top of rocky dirt. _But what can I do? Bunshin no jutsu has always been my worst skill, and the scroll starts with a kind I've never even heard of before!_

The side of his hand bumped into cold metal, and Naruto fumbled with picking up the flashlight before standing up._Even when a teacher tells me about this one scroll and gives me another chance to pass, I still..._ Naruto's face saddened_I still... I can't_ do_ it._ He bit his lip, and rolled it between his canines as he grabbed another replacement battery from his supply pouch. He bit down with more pressure as his face hardened, and let his teeth tear open his lip before he clicked the light on; He wasn't going to think about it.

And that's when the light shone on the scroll, the thick paper strewn open over the ground, and it was like a shimmering sign from above. Naruto's eyes widened in realization, before his face slowly formed into a huge grin that only promised discomfort, mortification, trickery and an endless run of pranks and schemes. It was an infamous sign, known throughout the village of Konoha, that Naruto had thought of something that would cause many problems and headaches later.

_Mizuki-sensei never did say what exactly I needed to learn_ first _from the scroll, now did he?_

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Naruto shifted on his knees, moving towards the part of the scroll still rolled up - though now significantly thinner - and jabbing it further open with the end of the flashlight. He then moved the spot of light over the writing, quickly reading the description of the next technique in the scroll, before giving a heavy sigh. "Nope." He then repeated the process once again. 

He'd been doing this for a while now, and frankly he got sick of it fast. The further he went in the scroll, the more complex the procedures became, the more time he'd need for the technique to actually work, and the more steadily all the techniques seemed to be turning suicidal. It_really_ didn't help that everything directly after the kage bunshin was actually sealing theory - and not for friggin' beginners ether. Reading that stuff made Naruto's brain sting, so he just pushed the scroll further open with a particularly strong push and continued from there.

And that's how he was soon loosing scroll space to read on, and he was beginning to get a bit desperate to find anything to attempt at all. _This isn't working like I thought it would..._

He narrowed his eyes, but quickly tossed his thoughts away; Now wasn't the time to get distracted, no matter how valid his concern was becoming. He skipped over the procedure for another technique "Nope." _I think I'd take anything right now._ He growled when the next one described a medical procedure made to restrain a burst appendix with a containing seal - which required at least ten people and five liters of blood to perform... and someone with a ruptured appendix. _I hate sealing jutsu, I hate it so fucking much._

The light shifted down the scroll again, and he was about to keep going before he stopped._Douten Kuchiose no jutsu: Dokomademo Tomomari Eijuusha...? The hell does that do?_

_...Transfers a human being to the users location indefinitely as a companion. This person is meant to be complimentary to the users self, but the summoning process can consciously be affected by the will of the user by thoughts during the summoning process. Can bring any living being to the summoner, with skills and knowledge of their own kinds, to become friendly with the user. Howe-_ Naruto skipped over the rest of the description to look over the instructions, becoming extremely giddy. Moments later he began laughing - the only thing he needed was a kunai, an hour or two, and experience with molding chakra.

"_Finally!_ Something I can actually _manage!_" He yelled out for the clearing to hear, flopping down on the ground to continue laughing in relief. When his laughter finally faded, he continued to lay there for a bit, humming a nameless tune, bobbing his head and his right foot along with the beat. He had a very happy smile on his face.

_I guess I'm not completely screwed after all..._

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-oOo-

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**A/N:**One thousand seven hundred seventy one words at the last count. :D 

Well, for everyone who's read so far, how'd it go for you? Did I spell something wrong? Is my grammar iffy somewhere? Did I forget something important? Is it 'I'm bored enough to read it' or 'that was really interesting actually, keep going' (it can't really be '...presses the back button and try to forget it happened' if you got to the bottom)? Is my characterization of Naruto good, iffy, or retarded? Opinions and explanations of all the above are nice too.


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